  SPECIES SURVIVAL COMMISSION |
Tapirs:
Status Survey and Conservation Action Plan
Published 1997
John F. Eisenberg
University of Florida; Department of Natural Sciences; Florida Museum of Natural History;
P.O. Box 117800; Gainesville, Florida 32611, USA
The family Tapiridae as a taxonomic entity is first recognizable in the Eocene of North America, nearly 50 Million years ago (Mya). At that time, the family Equidae was beginning to diverge from the Tapiridae. The genus Tapirus first appeared in the Miocene (25-5 Mya), thus, the extant tapirs derive from an ancient lineage. Given the intermittent connections between North America and Asia via the Bering Straits, the tapirs soon appeared in Euro-Asia. With the completion of the land bridge between North America and South America, during the Pliocene (7-2 Mya), Tapirs entered South America.
While tapirs have died out over much of their former range, they persist in southeast Asia, Mesoamerica, and South America. There are four surviving species - one in Asia (Malayan tapir T. indicus), one in Middle America (Baird's tapir T. bairdii), and two in South America (lowland tapir T. terrestris and mountain tapir T. pinchaque), all to some extent threatened if not endangered.
This Action Plan summarizes much of the literature concerning the status and ecology of the survivors. It further offers plans for the preservation of these remaining stocks.
Malayan tapir survives in small isolated populations within its range in peninsular Malaya and Sumatra. It formerly extended to Burma and adjacent parts of Thailand where it may still persist. Baird's tapir exists in fragmented populations from Chiapas, Mexico through Mesoamerica to northwestern Colombia and west of the Andes to lowland, northwestern Ecuador. The mountain tapir, T. pinchaque, as the name implies, is to be found at high elevations in the Andean portions of Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. The common, lowland tapir, T. terrestris, has the broadest range of the four living species extending from north-central Colombia in lowland tropical habitats thence east of the Andes over most of tropical South America.
As a genus the four species inhabit both montane and lowland habitats, all within the tropics. They never occurred in Africa or Australia. They characteristically are associated with tropical forests or tropical montane forests. Lowland tapir may occupy savannah or tropical dry, deciduous forests, but usually in the vicinity of permanent riverine forests. The extensible proboscis is used to strip leaves and pluck fruits. Their diet includes a bewildering array of plant species and many different plant parts. Fruit may be taken from low shrubs or as fallen fruit on the ground. Pod-like fruits with small seeds may be chewed with considerable damage to seeds, but fleshy fruits with large seeds may be consumed whole and the seeds passed through the gut with minimal damage and enhanced ability to germinate.
The spatial requirements of tapirs vary with the carrying capacity of the habitats. An individual T. indicus has been known to range over an area of over 12km2. Individuals of mountain tapir may range over smaller areas of half this size, while the core use area for Baird's tapir may be as small as 1km2 in good habitat. Aside from a courting pair or a mother and her young, tapirs travel and feed alone. Mountain tapir may form more permanent pair associations and exhibit an exclusive home range use pattern. Densities of tapirs tend to be low with estimates ranging from a high of 1/km2 to less than 0.3/km2. The individualistic life style and relatively low density means that they do not achieve a high local abundance, and with high hunting pressure may easily become locally extinct. Fragmentation of preferred habitat increases the vulnerability for extirpation. Neotropical tapirs have been hunted as a source of meat by indigenous peoples throughout their range.
Tapirs do not have a high reproductive rate. Most details on reproduction derive from lowland tapir, but some generalizations may be advanced. A single young is born after a thirteen month gestation. Although a female tapir may conceive within a month after giving birth, this is not an invariant rule. It is safe to say that under the best circumstances a young can be born every 14 months in habitats exhibiting little seasonality in food availability. In seasonally arid habits, the interval between births may be longer. A female does not become sexually mature until she is nearly two years of age under the best of conditions. A female can remain reproductively active into her tenth year of life and beyond. In South America productivity for tapirs is lower than that exhibited by the deer or peccaries that may occur with them.
Mortality in tapirs may be heavy durlng the first year of life since the larger predators (tigers in Asia; jaguars and pumas in Mesoamerica and South America) can and do take younger animals. Tapirs are hunted by humans as a prized game animal, and unregulated human predation combined with land clearing for agriculture are the primary threats to their continued survival.
While tapirs do not share the glamour of elephants, pandas, and the large cats, they certainly deserve a higher visibility. What we are looking at today is a remnant of a very successful taxon, with a distinguished and ancient lineage. Although relatives of the horse and rhinoceros, these shy, cryptic animals are often overlooked. A dedicated band of scientists in the last 30 years has explored the intricacies of their behavior and their role in maintaining the ecology of their environment. Most casual observers do not realize that tapirs play an important role in dispersing seeds of the fruits upon which they feed. This seed dispersal role by the tapir ensures that some of its preferred food plants replenish themselves in suitable habitats. The role of large herbivores in dispersing seeds of fruits is under-appreciated by the lay public, or for that matter, ecologists who have not pursued the topic. The role of herbivores in structuring tropical forests is only now beginning to be explored in an active fashion. The linkages among all species, plant and animal, in a tropical forest are intricate beyond belief. But as we continue to conduct research, we shall discover bit-by-bit the interrelationships among species that structure the tropical communities which we are so anxious to preserve.
This brief synopsis touches on only a few aspects of tapir natural history. We have achieved much in our studies of tapirs in the wild and in captivity during the last two decades. It goes without saying we have in turn built upon an older base of natural history data assembled by the previous naturalists.
